Australian kids with cancer forced overseas for treatment as proton therapy centre sits empty in Adelaide

7NEWS

7 hours ago

It was meant to revolutionise cancer treatment for Australian children.
Instead, Adelaide 's state-of-the-art Australian Bragg Centre for Proton Therapy now sits pretty much empty, and is likely to remain so for many years to come.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Lack of cancer treatment forces Australian families to seek care abroad.
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It means hundreds of Australian families already navigating the hardest point in their lives after being told their kid has cancer will have to deal with endless paperwork for government grants or raise thousands of dollars themselves before packing up their lives and travelling to the United States for treatment.
Opposition health spokesperson Anne Ruston declared it an 'absolute national shame and an abject failure'.
She said many children and babies 'likely will die as a result of not being able to get access to the technology that was promised to them'.
The project was promised eight years ago by the federal Liberal and state government.
But last year the South Australian Labor government tore up the contract with the US company supplying the proton beam machine over funding issues.
An auditor general report into the decision has since found significant 'gaps' in the way the state government managed the project.
'Including the need for... effective oversight, project management and risk management arrangements, reflecting a project that is high risk, has a significant cost and has national consequences,' the report said.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas told 7NEWS: 'We can't fix the errors of the past, we just have to focus on a way we can get through this rather complex policy challenge.'
But with more than $100 million of public money already spent and no clear timeline for completion, the cost to taxpayers, and to Australian families, is mounting.
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said 'we are trying to work out really how much of that money is going to be able to be recouped', if any.
'But it seems quite clear to me on the best advice I have from the department that there is going to be a significant taxpayer loss here,' he said.
He warned that it could still be years before Australia has a functioning proton therapy unit, and pointed the finger at earlier decisions made under the former Marshall Liberal government in South Australia and the Turnbull Liberal government federally for choosing a controversial company unable to deliver the machine.
Ruston rejected the attempt to shift blame, saying 'it is a sad indictment that you would have a health minister who is about to enter his second term who is still blaming previous governments for the failures that are occurring on his watch'.
While politicians argue, and bureaucrats continue to release reports, almost 1000 Australian families are trying to raise enough money to receive lifesaving treatment in America.
Five-year-old Lenna Housseini was recently knocked back by the federal government's Medical Overseas Treatment Program, which helps Australians with life-threatening medical conditions access treatment overseas when it is not available here.
Her parents would need to raise $500,000 privately for her to go.
Without the time to do so, she will undergo treatment for Malignant Rhabdoid Tumour in Australia.
While the X-ray radiation here could save her life, there is only a 40 per cent chance she will survive and if she does pull through, she may struggle to speak.
'It's too late to complain, it's too late to do anything, it's too late to even have the regret, because we don't have time to have regret, we have to stay positive,' her father Amin Housseini said earlier this week.